Original news and analysis on international IP policy
"Emerging Markets and the World Patent Order" is a new book that looks at patent system implementation in emerging market and developing countries, and the response to this implementation by Europe and the United States. Florida State University Law Prof. Frederick Abbott, one of the organisers and editors of the book, recently discussed the book with Intellectual Property Watch
A side event to this week’s World Health Assembly highlighted progress being made in a public-private partnership on the elimination of sleeping sickness, a disease that occurs in some developing countries.
Melinda Gates of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation addressed the World Health Assembly today, highlighting a new initiative on newborns. And at a press conference earlier in the day, a senior colleague signalled support for WHO Director General Margaret Chan’s strong concern yesterday about possible negative effects of free trade agreements on access to affordable medicines.
At a side event to the opening of the 2014 World Health Assembly, strong statements were made by BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) country ministers and representatives to assume leadership and cooperate to tackle the issue of inaccessibility to affordable medicines in theirs and developing countries.
The World Intellectual Property Organization technical committee working on standards to facilitate work of intellectual property offices and their communication had to adjourn its fourth session last week for lack of agreement on the committee’s relationship to the 2007 Development Agenda of the organisation.
The World Intellectual Property Organization Committee on Development and Intellectual Property opened this week with a loaded agenda and some politically-charged issues. One of them is an independent assessment of the mandated mainstreaming of a development dimension into the activities of the UN organisation.
The United Nations Development Programme has launched a new publication on the use of competition law to promote access to health technologies. The guidebook describes competition law as an underused tool to be harnessed by developing countries and is designed to help them proficiently using it.
World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan opened the annual World Health Assembly today with strong calls to address a wide range of top health concerns across the world. This included a call for the global health community to work to assert the primacy of health concerns over economic interests.
The International Organisation of la Francophonie in collaboration with French pharmaceutical umbrella organisation "les Entreprises du médicaments," organised a roundtable on non-communicable diseases on the eve of the annual World Health Assembly.
Several health ministers as well as various stakeholders were invited to discuss "the fight against non-communicable diseases: a shared responsibility" on 18 May.
A new report from the World Health Organization concludes that prices of HIV treatments vary greatly between middle-income countries (MICs), often depending on patent landscape, licensing agreements, whether drugs were sourced from originator companies, and regulatory approval. For third-line treatments, the price of drugs remains a challenge for all, with newer products more likely to be patented in key countries of production.